I’m writing this from a lime green chaise in a hospital ward. To my left is a hospital bed, sides raised, head slightly elevated. In it, my 3-year old son is fast asleep, cuddling a small stuffed cow named Cowie. They’re both covered in a heavy blue hospital blanket.
My son will be fine. He caught a tummy bug that made him go all dehydrated. The docs and nurses are calm and studied. He’s not the first kiddo they treated for this exact bug this week.
So here’s a tortured metaphor for ya:
The business problems that feel uniquely yours and mine are very rarely so rare.
Most business problems have been solved for. Kate, one of my cofounders at Accoil, often likens our primary job as product builders to that of medical staff.
We ask questions to uncover problems, not just symptoms. We diagnose based on the answers to our questions and our experience of having seen these symptoms before.
We then test a solution based on a strong hypothesis (aka a guess) and see where we end up.
The more we do this work, the better we get at seeing the symptoms for the underlying causes they really are. And the better we get at quickly guessing how to treat the causes.
it takes experience and often patience. We have to hit pause and ask “have we seen this before?” Before we rush into solution mode.
Like the nurses and doctors treating my son, taking things on face value can get us the right answer, but it’s worth slowing down to ask the right questions and deeply understand what’s happening.
Maybe website visitors dropped. Maybe churn spikes around the same time each year. Maybe there’s a reason why some customer success managers grow NDR while others don’t.
Pause. Ask questions. Diagnose. Treat. Repeat.
Pete (and RePete)
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PS: And hey, Happy Christmas Eve.